The Polarizing Geography of School Choice in a City With Growing Inequality: The Case of Toronto

• In Event: School Choice Policies Shaping Neighborhoods, School Locations, and "Destinies"

Abstract

The key objective of this presentation is to showcase the impact of the marketization of public education in Toronto, Canada, by examining how school choice policy shapes secondary school students’ enrolment patterns in an increasingly unequal city in terms of income and wealth (especially in the area of housing). This examination aims to provide a new understanding into not only who is choosing what schools, but also who travels from which neighborhood to which neighborhood, and how far in order to attend their choice schools. This study thus aims to illuminate how school choice patterns reproduce not only social but also spatial inequality in the city.
We draw from Pierre Bourdieu’s (1999) theory of site to explore the socio-spatial relationship between growing income inequality and the ways families choose secondary schools. Bourdieu’s theory allows for an examination of how unequal urban neighborhoods and their schools attract what types of students, and the resulting impact this has on spatial inequality and hierarchy in the city.
This paper applies a socio-geographical methodology (i.e. Geographic Information Systems) to analyze three types of data: the Toronto District School Board’s secondary student enrolment data (2014-2015), the Environics Analytics’ household income data (2014), and Statistics Canada’s Census data (2016). The data are analyzed for the spatial patterns of school choice and the distance travelled by students of different neighborhood backgrounds by income, education, and housing value.
Our preliminary analysis shows that public schools in neighborhoods with a high number of low-income families were less likely to be attended, and thus were under-utilized, while the public schools in more affluent areas were more likely to attended, and thus were over-utilized. Also, students who attend specialized secondary programs in the public education system travel farther than those who attend regular, comprehensive secondary schools. For instance,

• Students in French Extended and French Immersion program travel 3.8 Km and 4.4 Km, respectively, which is little more than the average distance travelled by a typical student, at 3.7Km
• Students in (high-performing) Gifted programs travel farther, at 5.7 Km
• Students in the (elite) Arts programs travel the farthest, at 6.7 Km

We plan to further analyze where—that is, in what neighborhoods—these specialized school programs are located; the socio-demographic backgrounds of students who travel farther; and the differences between the characteristics of the students’ home neighborhoods and those of the neighborhoods where they are enrolled in school.
When completed, this study will make a much need contribution to understanding how increasing school choice may further sort students according to their family/neighborhood characteristics, and may generate greater spatial polarization between popular/affluent and not-so-popular/low-income neighborhoods in the most populous city in Canada.  

Authors

• Ee-Seul Yoon, University of Manitoba

• Cosmin Marmureanu

• Robert S. Brown, Toronto District School Board